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Thursday, February 25, 2016

Without Communication, Who Are We?

I've spent today in an email chain trying to solve a puzzle. Different people (who could be referred to as teammates of mine) are giving me contradictory answers to the same seemingly simple question.

On top of all that, I'm trying to get to the bottom of this in a way that won't offend anybody, all the while knowing some fundamental communication between us teammates would have prevented this in the first place. *sigh*

Of all sports, baseball seems to be the most reliant upon communication between teammates. It takes place on a number of levels, mid-game and even mid-play, using words and coded body language. Nowhere is this more evident than the constant non-verbal communications between a pitcher and his catcher.

I dug into my binders today and pulled out a few random pitchers, curious about who they spent their time communicating with. The results surprised me.

Hall of Famer Jim Palmer pitched for the Orioles for 19 years, and won more games than anyone else through the 70's. In checking on his past battery mates I discovered a former Dodger, Rick Dempsey.

Dempsey was behind the plate for eight of Palmer's shutouts. That's certainly some top-notch communicating.

6 comments:

Nice post Oscar. I always find it interesting when some journeyman catchers are involved in great games. Former Pirate manager and current bench coach of the Orioles John Russell caught Nolan Ryan's last no hitter.

Wait, you don't have that 1982 Fleer card -- featuring a photo that looks like it was taken by a 5-year-old with shaky hands on a sugar rush -- of "Steve & Carlton" with a subtitle of "Carlton & Fisk"?